Letters of Franklin K. Lane eBook

March 12, (1918)

Nothing talked of at Cabinet that would interest a
nation, a family, or a child. No talk of the
war. No talk of Russia or Japan. Talk by
McAdoo about some bills in Congress, by the President
about giving the veterans of the Spanish war leave,
with pay, to attend their annual encampment.
And he treated this seriously as if it were a matter
of first importance! No word from Baker nor mention
of his mission or his doings. ...

TO FRANKLIN K. LANE, JR.

SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE

Washington, February 15, 1918

Mydearboy,—... We are
anxiously awaiting some word telling where you are,
what you are doing, and how you got on in your trip.
I thought your cablegram was a model of condensation,
quite like that of Caesar, “Veni, vidi, vici.”
...

Sergeant Empey has just left the office with a letter
to the Secretary of War, asking that he be given a
commission. He has been lecturing among the cantonments
and wants to get back to France. ... He says
that the boys in the cantonments are anxious to go
across, and that they are beginning to criticise us
because they do not have their chance. But they
will all get there soon enough for them. Our
national problem is to get ships to carry them, and
to carry the food for the Allies. ... We have
undertaken to supply a certain amount of food to the
other side, and our contract, so far, has not been
fulfilled. During December and January, however,
this was, of course, due to railroad conditions.

You are a long way off, but you must not visualize
the distance. Nothing so breaks the spirit as
to dwell upon unfortunate facts. Some one day
or another you had to leave the nest, and this is
your day for flying. Wherever you are, with people
whose language you understand only imperfectly, with
a civilization that is somewhat strange, and under
conditions that often-times will be trying, don’t
adopt the usual attitude of the American in a foreign
country and wonder “why the damn fools don’t
speak English.” No doubt some of the French
will pity you because of your delinquency in their
language.

Another thing that differentiates us from other people
is our lavishness in expenditure, and in what appears
to us to be their “nearness.” ...
From these same thrifty French have come great things.
They have always been great soldiers; they have led
the world in the arts, especially in poetry, painting
and fiction—­ perhaps, too, I should add
architecture. So that men who are careful of
their pennies are not necessarily small in their minds.
...

I have less doubt, however, of your ability to get
on with the Frenchman than I have with the Englishman.
... You will have difficulty—­at least
I should—­in understanding the rather heavy,
sober, non-humorous Englishman. ... He is always
a self-important gentleman who regards England as
having spoken pretty much the last word in all things,
and who will abuse his own country, his countrymen,
and institutions, frankly and with abandon, but will
allow no one else this liberty. He is not a “quitter”
though, and he has done his bit through the centuries
for the making of the world.